Join Close Encounters With Music as we celebrate our 33rd season of bringing together sublime chamber music, distinguished performers, and musical commentary as we present Drama and Melodrama - The Schumanns.

The ever-fascinating and intimate triangle - Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms - will be brought to new light with seldom-heard works that highlight the musical cross-references and spiritual bond that united them.

Predating accompaniment to silent films by decades, Robert's melodrama Schön Hedwig is a forerunner to soap opera sentimentality with a happy ending. His Piano Quartet in E-flat major (premiered with Clara as pianist), marries Romantic lyricism with baroque counterpoint and sonic flamboyance in one of the masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire.

Also featured is Clara Schumann's piano concerto composed with a daring slow movement, a love duet between the piano and a single cello, as well as her Three Romances for Violin and Piano.

Brahms' greatest set of piano variations, Op. 9, written after Schumann was committed to an asylum, spells out the name CLARA in its theme, in a work tender, boisterous, and touched with heartfelt brilliance.

Adam Golka, piano
Itamar Zorman, violin
Helena Baille, viola
Yehuda Hanani, cello
Michael Wise, narrator